In Hanoi, there are many housing and apartment projects that have been completed for people to live in, even though the rough construction has been completed. There are projects that have been idle for decades while thousands of people have to rent houses, struggling to find a house as Lao Dong reporters reported.
For example, in the Tokyo Tower project (formerly Vinafor apartment building or Landmark 51) it was developed on an area of nearly 4,600m2 with 688 apartments. The project was once expected to become the heart of Ha Dong district, but to date, Tokyo Tower has only completed the rough construction, "shelved" for many years.
The project is constantly caught up in scandals from being mixed up in distribution contracts, to the fact that the investor does not have enough capacity to implement the project, sell but does not take the mortgage.
By July 10, 2024, the Hanoi People's Committee issued Decision No. 3579/QD-UBND to inspect compliance with land law regulations; implementation of inspection and examination conclusions and direction for handling after inspection and examination of non-budgetary capital projects using land that are slow to be implemented, behind schedule, and violate in the city.
Accordingly, the Tokyo Tower project is on the list of inspected projects along with more than 10 other projects in the districts of Ha Dong, Thanh Xuan, Hoang Mai, Thanh Oai. As of the end of December 2024, the project has not had specific inspection information.
It can be seen that projects that have been completed but are still blamed on are not the home buyers but the investors with many reasons such as banks tightening debts; illegal construction; failure to properly implement procedures on land, construction order, and fire prevention and fighting regulations.
Sharing with Lao Dong reporter, Dr. Tran Xuan Luong - lecturer in Real Estate, National Economics University - said that some provinces and cities are reviewing abandoned and unfinished construction projects to completely handle them.
"To completely handle the situation to create supply for people, it is necessary to find a specific cause for each project. The cause is due to construction violations, capital sources, or fire prevention and fighting laws... then there must be a mechanism to handle it" - Dr. Luong said.
According to this expert, with small problems, the government needs to be flexible so that investors can continue to deploy, complete the supply for the market, and hand over houses to people.
From a legal perspective, lawyer Nguyen Huy An - Hanoi Bar Association - shared that this reality shows that home buyers need to study and be more cautious when signing an apartment purchase contract.
On the other hand, the authorities also need to consider legal solutions when regulating the purchase and sale of future housing to better protect the rights of home buyers. At the same time, the inspection and examination regime needs to be implemented regularly, publicly announcing the project status so that home buyers have full information.
Meanwhile, according to Dr. Le Xuan Nghia - member of the National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Council, a series of projects have been "shelved" for a long time, causing waste of national resources and negatively affecting people.
This person believes that the situation of completed but unfinished projects for people to live in contributes to a shortage of supply for the market.
Management agencies have taken positive steps to remove difficulties, currently Hanoi City is reviewing all projects facing difficulties, including projects behind schedule, projects that are "shelved" to find solutions - Dr. Le Xuan Nghia informed.
According to Mr. Nghia, when legal bottlenecks of real estate projects are removed, projects that are behind schedule are "revived", the supply to the market will be more, housing prices will be able to "go down", low-income people will have more opportunities to own a house.
